xxxii] CALIFORNIA TO QUEBEC 187 



were in equal proportion. After giving my lecture on 

 " Colour " in the evening, I had to hurry off to catch the 

 train, in which I slept, and reached Kingston the next day 

 early in the afternoon. Here I had been invited to spend a few 

 days in a delightful old country house on the shores of Lake 

 Ontario, in the refined and very congenial society of Mr. and 

 Mrs. Allen, and their two daughters. I much enjoyed this 

 visit, and my genuine admiration of the writings of their only 

 son, Grant Allen, was a bond of sympathy. The house is a 

 roomy old-world mansion, situated in a small park with grand 

 old trees, and fruit, flower, and kitchen garden sloping down 

 to the water. Mr. Allen himself worked at his flowers, and 

 had a magnificent collection of gladioli now in full bloom. 

 But what interested me even more was to see rows of vines 

 in the open ground laden with as fine fruit as we grow in a 

 vinery, though the winters are far longer and more severe 

 than ours. But the higher temperature due to the more 

 southern latitude, combined with a clearer atmosphere and 

 greater amount of sunshine, are far more favourable to 

 all fruit and flowers which are uninjured by low winter 

 temperatures. 



One afternoon I went to visit a relative of the Aliens at 

 Gananoque, where they have a small cottage on the rocky 

 bank of the St. Lawrence, looking on to the celebrated 

 Thousand Islands. There is an acre of wild ground, with 

 a little woody ravine bounded by granite rocks, where interest- 

 ing wild plants are found. The next morning I was taken 

 among the nearer islands in a small yacht, landing on some 

 to collect ferns. They are all ice-ground, often mere bosses 

 rising a few feet above the water, some of the larger ones 

 having pretty villas and gardens on them. A description of 

 this place has been made the subject of one of Grant Allen's 

 bright magazine articles. 



One evening Mr. Allen took me to tea at Sir Richard 

 Cartright's, one of the Canadian ministers, at his fine country 

 house in a spacious park, a few miles in the country. One of 

 the sons took me to a wood where trilliums were in flower; 

 afterwards we had tea in a spacious hall. There were several 



